Maddow Bashes NBC Management Over Handling of Harvey Weinstein Story

Rachel Maddow criticized NBC executives for letting Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein “get away,” calling it “a shame.” Maddow also said she independently confirmed Farrow’s claim that the network halted his reporting on Weinstein’s alleged misconduct.

“The allegations about the behavior of Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer are gut-wrenching at baseline, no matter who you are or what your connection is to this story,” Maddow told her viewers. “But accusations that people in positions of authority in this building may have been complicit in some way in shielding those guys from accountability, those accusations are very, very hard to stomach.”

Maddow continued: “The amount of consternation this has caused among the rank and file people who work here would be almost impossible for me to overstate.”

Farrow, whom Maddow booked for her show Friday, thanked the host for lending credibility to his claim that the higher ups at the network slow-rolled his story. “Calling her bosses to account on their own air,” he wrote on Twitter, was “not an easy thing” for Maddow or her staff.

NBC has denied Farrow’s accusations. Farrow’s story, which he later took to the New Yorker, earned a Pulitzer Prize.

Maddow also revealed that NBC will release former employees from non-disclosure agreements upon request.

“Any former NBC News employee who believes that they cannot disclose their experience with sexual harassment as a result of a confidentiality or non-disparagement provision in their separation agreement should contact NBCUniversal and we will release them from that perceived obligation,” an NBC spokesperson said.

Maddow’s colleague, Chris Hayes, had similarly expressed reservations earlier this month with how his network handled the affair.

“In Farrow’s view, he was unable to break through what was effectively a conspiracy of silence from NBC News management,” Hayes said. Farrow’s work, he added, is the type of journalism that those in the industry “should want to facilitate.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.